It's not perfect, but Gus Gould's NRL conference model has merit

The problem with a conference model like this is it locks in a certain number of Sydney sides which isn't healthy long term. 16 teams, 15 rounds, each team plays each other team once, split the home/away games (top 8 sides from last season get 1 less home game), and play Origin after the NRL finals (now taking place in late July) over 5 weeks (Sunday afternoon games with a 2-3PM kick off) so there can be recovery weekends -- for the recovery weekends put the 9s on or something.

As I've been saying, remove 3 rounds and on those weekends, play Pacific Cup matches. These matches could be played all round Aus/NZ/PNG/Fiji etc. It would give the broadcaster the football they want and it would grow the game at the same time.

Expand the 9s?! This is the competition that doesnt rate highly enough to crack FTA TV. The Auckland 9s will die a slow death. I will be amazed if it pulls any crowds by years 3 and 4.

Nice article and I agree there is no perfect model. I do love he conference idea and think if the game made the big step and did it that it would be a boon for the code. But gus is dead wrong on his suggestion of a sydney conference, just not workable imo. Pretty silly to even put that version of it to paper tbh My idea is to have 4 divisions when we eventually expand to 18 teams. Along the following lines Queensland division- Broncos, titans, cowboys, Brisbane 2 Tasman division- Roosters, souths, manly, Newcastle, warriors Southern- Bulldogs, sharks, dragons, melbourne, Canberra Western- Penrith, parra, Wests, Perth. It works by playing each team in your division h&a then the rest of the teams once on a rotating home game year on year for a total of 21 games. The four team conferences play an addition home or away match against a team from the other four team division to make up the balance of the games to 21 for them. This way the sydney teams have a fair balance between travel and h&a rivalries. while the Queensland conference allows lucrative h&a matches to their full extent in that state but giving them reasonable travel as well. The benefits I can see are -reduced games to satisfy players, but as many games to sell due to their being 18 teams. -free up several weeks to allow stand alone origin so draw is never compromised -add in pacific cup and perhaps kiwi/England tours during the origin break. Maybe international nines? -can expand nines, keep all stars, international exhibitions all possible with the reduced nrl schedule. Finals series would be the divisional winners and then the next four best teams ranked on a combined league ladder 1-18. Finals in same format as current. One quirk might be to offer double points in divisional games so that their importance is emphasised.

A stand alone game won't stop players missing football from injuries. However playing Origin on a Sunday Night (with a split around) would allow all non-injured players to back up for an uninterrupted round the next week.

OK you've got the map sorted, what's the play look like?

No, it impacts the round before, when they are all missing, and the round after when few backup for the Friday night games. multiply that by 3 and BAM. It's 6.

The NSWRL always intended to reduce the number of Sydney Teams and establish a National Competition, long before Super League came along. They commissioned the Bradley Report, which concluded that: "...to reduce the number of clubs in Sydney, will be very hard for the League to implement given the long playing traditions of some of those clubs. In the long term, however, it is likely that Sydney is not going to be able to support eleven clubs as it does at present. Therefore in the long term this is the only viable solution. Sydney based clubs are going to have to move to new areas, merge or be relegated from the League. This is going to be a painful process." Superleague was never a solution - it was about News Limited having control of the game. Under Super League, the players were Contracted to News Limited, not to the individual Clubs.

Proof the N(SW)RL is Sydney Centric, bring on another Super League war to kick these guys in the ass again, the game has become too corrupt, with the refereeing and NSW media, we all know it. The psychology of the game, the power brokers in Sydney trying to shift the base back towards Sydney (It happens in all politics and if you don't think it happens in your sport you get around with blinkers and a whip to your behind to get inline! unless your from Sydney and you like the feel of that whip!)

Gould's suggestion has some merit. But to put half the teams from Syd in one conference is massively unfair. It means the Syd teams barely need to travel out of Sydney. What a joke! Now what the NRL needs to do is: 1) work out how many games they want in a season. 24 rounds is just too long. There is no quality here, its all quantity. Origin proves that quality matters. You get enormous revenue from just 3 games. This proves that if you nail quality that the dollars flow. 24 rounds over 26 weeks...its just snoozefest...fans simply dont attend nor watch that many games. And with the silly top 8 fans know that their team can wait until around round 21 to make a run for the finals. 2) Put Origin on monday night.

The Sydney teams now travel even less is the issue.

Gould is as sydney centric as they come. He seems to believe the NRL is there to look after the sydney teams while all the regional and outer teams have to fend for themselves. This is the same mentality that the ARL/NSWRL had in the 80s and early 90s that brought upon the super league war.

I think its a bit premature for conferences and they should only be used as a last resort once the comp is above 20 teams. I creates a greater imbalance in the competition. The top 4 in one conference could be vastly inferior to the top 4 in another. And splitting up the conferences into Sydney and others is even worse. It could also lead to bad jetlag in one conference due to the vast span of timezones (assuming Perth gets a team) The Warriors could play 2 games at what it effectively 11:30pm for them And the Perth team could end up playing to games at 10am. The conference system stinks for all 'regional' teams. The Sydney conference system isn't designed to make it easier by making teams play locally, it is openly designed to help out Sydney crowds. Which there's no guarantee it will. Teams already play local rivals twice every year, what the conference system will do is ensure instead of occasionally playing the cowboys or titans twice teams will play the Panthers and Sharks twice. I don't really see a great benefit in this scenario, maybe 1 or 2k more fans coming to a couple more games, but nothing so great its worth completely discarding the current NRL structure for.

QLD/North: Brisbane - Gold Coast - Melbourne - North Queensland Pacific: Manly- Newcastle - South Sydney - Sydney South: Bulldogs - Cronulla - NZ Warriors - St George-Illawarra West: Canberra - Parramatta - Penrith - Wests Tigers Sydney clubs grouped loosely around metro geographical regions with 1 regional club in each group. Thank me later.

Perhaps Gus Gould's Penrith Panthers could join the "Regional Conference". They do have an affiliate club in Bathurst and they are often called the "mountain men" in reference to the Blue Mountains. Then the SGI Dragons can stay in the Sydney Conference - which should actually be called the "Pre-67" Conference or "Heritage Conference". The Regional / Expansionist / "post-67" conference would then comprise: 1. Penrith / Country NSW 2. Canberra 3. Newcastle 4. Gold Coast 5. Brisbane 6. North Queensland 7. Melbourne 8. New Zealand Oh, and yes, this assumes that Cronulla are relegated and replaced with the Bears, as it should have been: The "Heritage" Conference (pre-67) would be: 1. Sydney (City / Easts) 2. South Sydney 3. Wests (JV) 4. North Sydney / Central Coast 5. St George Illawarra 6. Canterbury Bankstown 7. Manly Warringah 8. Parramatta

The conference system is the way to go. But not as a Sydney conference and a regional/interstate conference. Whether it is every other team in one conference and the other in the second conference but it wouldn't be rocket science to work it out. Ideally, twenty teams would be a good number, ten in each conference. At the moment we have Perth wanting in, Christchurch, a second Brisbane team, central Qld, NSW Central Coast and Adelaide. Not all but four of them. Full home and away for each conference. Stand alone weekends for SOO and internationals. Top four from each conference to combine to form the current eight team finals. Short of the current 26 week rounds but what about an AMCO Cup style knockout for the first four weeks.

Do you have kids and a job that involves travel?

The competition doesn't need to expand to 18 teams to have conferences. 16 teams divides into four conferences just fine. Like the NFL system you play every team once, teams in your conference twice and you rotate through the other conferences on a three year cycle playing one other conference twice each year. Thats 21 matches plus two byes. 23 rounds, or if you want 26 rounds you play two of the other three conferences twice and rotate that.